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The Walawwa in Sri Lanka: Its Origins

Dash De Soysa, …. with a modification by the author of the original Thuppahi entry set out in blue lettered text; and two ‘pictures’ of the Prince of Wales’ visit to Ceylon added on 28th Novembe 2023

The walauwa was a residence of an aristocrat in the past and, according to the Sinhala Dictionary, it is derived from the Tamil or Telugu word ‘walawu’. Some also refer to it as a place of jurisdiction. The earliest sources that refer to elite residencies and residents of Lanka can be found in many ancient Brahmi inscriptions dating from about the 2nd century BCE. The ‘prabhu‘ (elite) of various sectors – administration, military, tax collection, navigation, ports, agriculture, infrastructure and so on were referred to as ‘parmuka‘, and the king as ‘Mapurumukā‘. Similarly, ‘pramukha’ and ‘pramukhän’ in Sanskrit and ‘perumakan’ in Tamil also mean foremost, chief, principal or a distinguished person. The term ‘grahapati’ (from the same era) meaning householder is perhaps the earliest recorded version of the subsequent gruha(pati), geya and gedara, terms which are in use even today. The term derives from the Sanskrit ‘gṛha’, meaning house. Whilst subsequent literary sources also mention wasala, niwasa and medura, there is no mention of walawwa until one comes across sources from the more recent centuries.

Badulla Pillar Insciption

  Mannar Kacceri Pillar Inscription
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The WG St Clair Musical Orchestra in Ceylon, 1930

Hugh Karunanayake, in The Island, 13 November 2023 ... with highlighting imposed by The Editor Thuppahi

Western music in Sri Lanka today is a broad musical canvas encompassing many musical genres such as the classics, pop, jazz, rock and roll etc. It is indeed a live entity drawing musicians of talent to meet the unceasing demand from an ever-growing audience. Sri Lanka [today] boasts a formidable musical culture which seems to be institutionalised and embedded within all classes and ethnicities.

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A Campaign Against Sledging & Intimidation on the Cricket Field

Michael Roberts

My upbringing was heavily impregnated with cricket and its sporting values. The practices of sledging and verbal one-upmanship in order to unsettle batsmen was simply unthinkable to those so nourished. When Sri Lanka’s team under Arjuna Ranatunga had a prolonged tour of Australia in 187, they happened to spend a lot of time in Adelaide.  I was introduced to Arjuna and Ruwan Kalpage at a dinner at the house of Tilak Gunasekera (alas not more with us) and his wife Dawn (nee Buultjens). There I received first-hand tales of the degree to which Australian cricket was, so to speak, impregnated with the sledging form of one-upmanship.

 

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Angelo Mathews in Furious Mood after the Timed-Out Dismissal

Andrew Fidel Fernando, in ESPNcricinfo,  6 November 2023……… where the title runs thus: “Mathews on timed-out dismissal: ‘Never seen a team or a player stoop so low'”,

“It was obviously disgraceful from Shakib and Bangladesh,” Mathews says of the incident. In almost certainly the most explosive press conferences of his career, Angelo Mathews called the actions of opposition captain Shakib Al Hasan and the Bangladesh team “obviously disgraceful”. He said he’d “never seen a team or player stoop so low” in his 15 years of playing international cricket. It was “unfortunate” his helmet strap broke in a match against Bangladesh because he doesn’t think “any other team would do that”, he added.

 

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Sin-Bin for Verbal Intimidation in Cricket

Michael Roberts

This essay was drafted on 25 April 2001 and appeared in print-form in Roberts, Essaying Cricket, Sri Lanka and Beyond, Colombo, Vijitha Yapa Publishers, 2006, pp. 98-102. The highlighting here is additional emphasis in 2023 by Roberts as Editor, Thuppahi.

The ICC has moved, rather belatedly, to invest umpires with the power to penalise cricketers for unsportsmanlike behaviour. I suggest, here, that the penalty should be more severe. Rather than reducing or adding runs, the penalty should be a sin-bin for one player, preferably a specific offender or the worst offender in the instance of, say, excessive appealing. Indeed, I would go further: for excessive appealing, the captain of the fielding side should be sent to the sin-bin for a specific amount of time, say, one hour.

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The Power of Hate: Some Incomplete ‘Steps’ …..

An Intial Bibliography from South Asia

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Michael Roberts: “Addressing Two Angry Tamils,” 9 March 2012, https://thuppahis.com/2012/03/09/addressing-two-angry-tamils-heat-distortion-truth-fact-mendacity-and-eternal-enmity/

Thanga: “Another Angry Tamil: Thanga sees Pirapaharan as an Indelible Part of the Tamil Psyche’,” 29 February 2012, https://thuppahis.com/2012/02/29/

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Biden & USA in the ‘Black Hole’ of the Red Sea

Observer in a Black Sea Town

  Yesterday, Biden said when the Hamas-Israel war is over, he will sort out all the problems in the Middle East and make everything alright. He comes across like a delusional benevolent father figure, appearing to make everything right, when he has just asked the US congress for another $100 billion for wars in Ukraine, the Middle East, and Taiwan. The neocons in Washington, i.e., Victoria Nuland, Blitzkrieg-Blinken, John Bolton and co want wars everywhere around the planet. Biden’s words about sorting everything out in the Middle East is baloney.

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Charlie Hebdo’s Cartoon Insights on the Hamas-Israeli Atrocities

Observer from a Black Sea Town

The latest edition of the French satirical weekly magazine Charlie Hebdo presents a series of cartoons that focus on the war between Israel and Hamas. In one cartoon, a man who appears to be a Hamas representative is unable to wash blood off his hands due to Israel cutting off the water supply in the Gaza Strip. “This is barbaric,” says the man in the cartoon. 

“This is barbaric!” 

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Sri Lanka’s Cricketing Heroes Applauded by Jayantha Dhanapala in 2015

Jayantha Dhanapala, a one-time Sri Lankan Of The Year and, alas, no more with us, paid this tribute on one occasion to the men who have done a nation of 20-odd million proud…. This was in the YEAR 2015.

 

Many nations are associated with sports archetypes. Over the years, Brazil conjures up the image of a soccer player, especially die immortal Pele mesmerising opponents with his magical dribbling. Likewise, rugby football is inseparable from New Zealand’s All Blacks, and the mention of the Marathon recalls Ethiopia. FLASHBACK TO 1996 Sri Lanka, amidst all the vicissitudes, remains firmly associated with cricket, especially after we won the 1996 Cricket World Cup, thanks to Arjuna Ranatunga and his glorious team. That squad won that national squad the Sri Lankan Of The Year (SLOTY) award, from LMD, among many other plaudits.

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Ranil eviscerates An Obnoxious German Reporter from the World’s Ruling Cabal

Darshani Ratnawalli, whose title was “Ranil chews a Deutsch man” ….. ….. the reference being to the German journalist representing DEUTSCHE WELLE ++

 

All the people writing සිංහල හෑලි (rants in Sinhala) about Ranil’s meltdown with the Deutsch journalist…………….have you tried transcribing the shouting parts, in order to find out critically what really made the prez blow his top? What were the inanities, stupidities and the tired old cliche questions which signalled to Ranil that it was ok to give the “lackey treatment” to the Deutsch man – that cutting of the presidential eyes to the side  as if looking at an imaginary chief of staff to ask “කවුද මේ මිනිහට වලව්වට එන්න දුන්නෙ?”. Ranil is equal: he treats Dilka of Derana, the Archaeological Commissioner and a Deutsch man in the same supercilious way; as though they were his lackeys. When he can give the perceived lackeys the same courtesy as he gives July Chung, he will have learnt etiquette, the etiquette which would have come naturally to him if he was of the best bred stock.

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